Les exigences contraires de l'imagination chex A. de Lamartine et A. de Vigny

Cheetham, Marie Josephe Alexina (1978) Les exigences contraires de l'imagination chex A. de Lamartine et A. de Vigny. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

The thesis is a comparative study of the poetry of Lamartine and Vigny. It is, in essence, a thematic analysis of imagery which reveals a basic contrast between the two Romantics.A brief first chapter establishes a community of feelings between the two poets and is intended to emphasise the diverging. viewpoints of Lamartine and Vigny as they are unfolded in subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 contrasts Lamartine's acceptance of death with Vigny's rejection of death. This contrast is paralleled in Chapter 3 by their very different attitudes towards external Nature. This opposition points to a fundamental difference in their conception of Man and the world, and in Chapter 4 the systematic study of imagery shows clearly that the Self can either aspire to disintegration of itself and of its world, or seek consolidation and permanence in an attempt to assert itself against the forces of dissolution and decomposition. The last chapter develops the antithesis of the inner and outer world in terms of the opposition between Heaven and Earth. The Earth being considered as an extension of Man and the Self, Lamartine and Vigny resolve the conflict by choosing to adopt a 'cosmic' and a 'homocentric' vision respectively. Throughout the imagery serves to project the poet's definition of himself and of his situation in the universe. The imaginative process, in the case of each poet, conjures up a consistent and coherent vision, and it is hoped that the technique of juxtaposition adapted will focus on the contrast between the two world-views. The thesis is written in French.

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